After a long career at Barron's, I joined Forbes as San Francisco bureau chief in December 2010. I've been writing about technology and investing for more than 25 years. With the Tech Trade, I've picked up where I left off when I was writing the Tech Trader Daily blog at Barrons.com. When I'm not working, you can find me riding my road bike around the Bay Area hills, managing my fantasy baseball team, rooting for my beloved Phillies and Eagles and hanging out in the Valley with my family. You can follow me on Facebook, on Twitter (@savitz), and on Google+.

Cablevision Exec: I'd Love To Sell Netflix As A Service To My Subs

Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge told investors at a Bank of America/Merrill Lynch investment conference in Beverly Hills yesterday that he’d be interested in offering Netflix to his cable customers.

“I’d love to sell Netflix as a service on my cable system ,” Rutledge said, according to Multichannel News. “Why not? There are other things I’d love to sell a la carte and I think I could sell deep penetration of products with our marketing capabilities. A la carte would be the most preferential way. I don’t see the word breaking up, though, into an a la carte scheme in the near future.”

Rutledge added that the company’s goal is to “put everything that’s on the Internet on all the screens in the house.”

“We’re moving rapidly to make that technology work even better and we think within a matter of months we’ll have a very robust system where customers can take their Netflix product, whether they have a device that carries Netflix or not , or Hulu or any other over-the-top service and put it on the TV,” he said. “To the extent that that has a moderating effect on our programming costs, that’s good. To the extent it satisfies customers, that’s good.”

Not a cray idea, really. After all, how are those Cablevision customers getting to Netflix? Why, over their Cablevision cable modems, that’s how. Hardly seems crazy to envision signing up for Netflix – and getting billed for it – via your cable bill.

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